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> I get really frustrated with how buggy and confusing FreeCAD is sometimes... I feel like every time I spend any time with FreeCAD I get stuck within minutes

> I get really frustrated with how buggy and confusing FreeCAD is sometimes... I feel like every time I spend any time with FreeCAD I get stuck within minutes by some kind of "Error 1337 has occurred" style non-explanatory dialog, and then when I search for long enough I find a discussion thread explaining that it's an error from the (parametric) kernel, that there's therefore nothing to be done to improve the message, and you're just somehow supposed to intuit that certain orders of operation are impossible. I've given up. Solvespace seems a lot more approachable and while it's less powerful, the power all seems to be reachable rather than booby trapped. For quick stuff I'm using TinkerCAD, which is a doddle. I will have to give FreeCAD yet another go, I suppose. Maybe there's a threshold where the bugginess starts to be easier to work around...? Edit: I should add that I only use Linux; if I were willing to change platform, the commercial options seem to be a lot better than the open source ones.

vba616 4y ago
This thread is old, just want to mention for anyone who runs across it, there is a FreeCAD workbench (like an extension) that is not installed by default I recommend checking out: it's called "Curves" and it is a huge improvement in productivity for me, almost as much as FreeCAD vs OpenSCAD in the first place. One of the most powerful things about it is it lets you make two drawings at right angles and combine them to make a non-planar curve, as well as having a bunch of tools for manipulating results. It may require watching some tutorial videos, but this seems to be how you reverse engineer complex curved shapes like, say, cars or other objects.